Introduction - Irene Robinson

[Irene]

I am not here to promote, market or sell anything. I am only a writer in the social, not commercial sense. So, although I do have a cousin who's a screenwriter, I myself am a non-professional.

I am a reader. I like ideas, but not all ideas.

I'm not enchanted with this latest trend of fantasy/magical thinking/writing/reading. My training as a psychologist makes me wary of delusions in all their forms. Although at one point in time I did highly appreciate the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I have now outgrown that phase. So, although I have some nieces who read all this new stuff, I am hoping that they too will outgrow it, sooner rather than later, and certainly by the time their children are grown.

I have a 70 year old sister who still watches animated films. She has quite a collection. She freely admits that she enjoys them for their escapist qualities. At the urging of my sister and nieces I have tried to watch several of these. I do not find them enjoyable. They are for children. I am not a child. I am aware that if you have children, you are pretty much forced to watch this stuff and you therefore justify that behavior by claiming you like them. I understand.

I also have some training in philosophy and have studied logic. I will most assuredly rub some people the wrong way. Some will rub me the wrong way. That is to be expected. It's life. (Well that and constantly having to do things you don't want to do)

Irene

[Andre Jute]

Irene wrote: "My training as a psychologist makes me wary of delusions in all their forms."

We have enough manipulators on this group to hold a convention.

[Claudine]

Irene I think I'm going to like you very much!

I like animated films too, well some of them. And you are so very right, what I read (mostly sci fi fantasy but not the Stephanie Meyers Twilight crap) is escapism and entertainment. It takes my mind off of the seriousness of the world and keeps my soul calm enough to face the cannibals that are my children and the busy lives we live.

I find that I am starting to gravitate back to thrillers and true life experiences though, that the sci fi fantasy fits nicely inbetween for when I have a moment at a doctor's office or on a plane. Might that have to do with age?

[Irene]

Claudine wrote: I find that I am starting to gravitate back to thrillers and true life experiences though, that the sci fi fantasy fits nicely inbetween for when I have a moment at a doctor's office or on a plane. Might that have to do with age?"

Interesting thought. I recall Stephen King, in an intro to one of his books, talked about being asked why horror and the supernatural were such potent and popular genres. He thought it might have something to do with our curiousity about death, horror books serving as a way to come close to it, without coming close in reality. I believe he phrased it something like this, by reading these books "we touch the body under the sheet".

Maybe as we age we gravitate back to genres that are closer to true life experiences when we are confronted with the reality that the body under the sheet is in our bed.

Just a thought.

When I read your 'the cannibals that are my children' I immediately had the vision of the chompers in the movie version of The Langoliers. Children are similar aren't they, eating their way through your time?

[Claudine]

Yes, that is a very apt description of them Irene!

Hmmm I think you are on to something about the body under the sheet.

[Andre Jute]

D'you two mind? I read that "body under the sheet" and "cannibals" exchange in the early hours of the morning on my way to bed, and dreamt of being a student again, the cadaver for dissection under the sheet, the plate of sandwiches on its forehead, Chris, the guy who did all my dissection and slides for me in return for making him famous as a rock'n'roll singer, flinging titbits sliced off organs to the cannibals (that I knew later from up the Oubangui -- dreams aren't calendar-true!) sitting under the table chewing on a black tree snake.

[Claudine]

We're all zombies Andre, cannabilism comes easy. Dead bodies under sheets with sarmies to match.....nice touch!

[Patricia]

The body under the sheet didn't get to me as much as the body under the sheet being in our own bed...

Last night I pinched myself just to make sure I was still alive.

[Andre Jute]

You shoulda joined the editorial team of THE MEYERSCO HELIX by Andrew McCoy. In there was a good discussion, presumably well-researched, about kerotonin and serotonin in the brain, the reality chemicals that tell you dreams are only dreams, that you aren't really insane. They don't work with pinching. You could still be a zombie.

[Patricia]

I can't be a zombie. I've never been that popular.

[Andre Jute]

Y'know, there are standup comics who will give their eyeteeth for the oneliners we routinely throw away on ROBUST.

In the long ago and far away, Paul Hogan (the Crocodile Dundee man) and I were sitting in a caff in King's Cross in Sydney. The waitress was a beautiful New Zealander, off the plane a couple of days. We were just being routinely nice to her, practicing our charm to put off the moment when we would have to think up some one-liners, but she thought we were trying to pick her up. 'No, thank you,' she said pleasantly, 'but I'm looking for a fellow with a steady job.' And then she walked into the kitchen, leaving us gaping at her one-liner!